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Provider Setup

Sidekick Agent Hub supports four inference providers. You only need to set up one.

Uses your Claude Max subscription via the Claude Code CLI — no extra API cost.

  1. Install and authenticate Claude Code CLI: 
    npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
claude auth login
  2. Follow the prompts to authenticate with your Claude Max subscription
  3. Start coding — Sidekick auto-detects Claude Code and uses it for inference

Why Claude Max is recommended

Inline completions fire frequently as you type. With an API key, per-token costs add up quickly. With Max, completions are covered by your existing plan.

Claude API

Direct Anthropic API access with per-token billing.

  1. Run "Sidekick: Set API Key" from the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P)
  2. Enter your Anthropic API key
  3. Switch provider in settings:
  4. Open Settings (Ctrl+,) → search sidekick.inferenceProvider → select claude-api
  5. Or: status bar → "Switch Inference Provider" → Claude (API Key)

OpenCode

Uses your configured OpenCode provider and model.

  1. Ensure OpenCode is installed and running (opencode in a terminal)
  2. Ensure sqlite3 is installed and available on PATH if you want Sidekick to monitor OpenCode sessions
  3. Sidekick connects to the local server on port 4096
  4. Switch provider:
  5. Settings → sidekick.inferenceProvider → opencode
  6. Or: status bar → "Switch Inference Provider" → OpenCode

Note

Sidekick resolves model tiers to explicit provider/model IDs and sends them with each request. An explicit provider/model setting overrides OpenCode's default; a bare model ID is not sent, so OpenCode uses its configured default.

Codex CLI

Uses your authenticated Codex CLI.

  1. Install Codex CLI globally: 
    npm install -g @openai/codex
  2. Authenticate with codex login, or provide OPENAI_API_KEY / CODEX_API_KEY. Sidekick recognizes auth.json in the resolved Codex home (CODEX_HOME or ~/.codex/), with legacy .credentials.json support.
  3. Switch provider:
  4. Settings → sidekick.inferenceProvider → codex
  5. Or: status bar → "Switch Inference Provider" → Codex CLI

Auto-Detection

When sidekick.inferenceProvider is set to auto (the default), Sidekick detects the most recently used coding agent based on filesystem timestamps and uses it for inference.

Session Monitoring Providers

Session monitoring uses a separate sidekick.sessionProvider setting. It also defaults to auto and supports:

  • Claude Code — monitors ~/.claude/projects/
  • OpenCode — monitors OpenCode's data directory: Linux ~/.local/share/opencode/, macOS ~/Library/Application Support/opencode/, Windows %LOCALAPPDATA%\opencode\ (falls back to %APPDATA%)
  • Codex CLI — monitors ~/.codex/sessions/

For OpenCode session monitoring, Sidekick reads opencode.db via sqlite3. If sqlite3 is unavailable, the extension and CLI show an actionable OpenCode-specific notice.